Opinion | The public needs more answers on the children lost to Native American boarding schools

“Yeah, I imply, I can’t even — I can’t reply that query,” mentioned Interior Secretary Deb Haaland when just lately requested by The Submit’s James Hohmann throughout a podcast interview if there’s cause to imagine there are mass burial websites in the USA like these just lately present in Canada. However Ms. Haaland, the primary Native American to function a Cupboard secretary, appears decided to search out out. By no means has there been a documentation of the coverage that compelled Native youths into boarding colleges to assimilate them into White American tradition, so final month she launched an initiative that may examine the lack of life and different penalties of the services operated by the federal authorities or spiritual organizations between 1870 and 1970. “We should make clear the unstated traumas of the previous, regardless of how laborious it will likely be,” she said, asserting the department will identify the places of the previous colleges and burial websites, decide the id and tribal affiliations of kids enrolled on the colleges and seek the advice of with tribes on future steps.